She Holds You Captivated
by Tropical Medlies
Summary: Falling for Fiona Coyne was one of the most terrifying things that Imogen Moreno had ever done. One-shot.


Falling for Fiona Coyne was one of the most terrifying things that Imogen Moreno had ever done, and she had done some pretty damn scary things in her short lifetime. That list included seeing her mother walk out on her father at the age of eight; getting successfully through elementary and middle school without getting herself bullied to the point of being killed; walking the line of a train track and trying to imitate the scene in _Fried Green Tomatoes_ when she was a freshman and nearly getting the end right, too, when the 2:00 ran through faster than she anticipated; and trying her hardest to become the girlfriend of one Eli Goldsworthy.

She first saw Fiona when she was a junior and Fiona was a senior, and she was carefully watching Eli from afar. She knew that act would seem stalkerish to most people, but she was honestly just too shy to go up to him just yet and wanted to figure out what he liked before she opened her mouth and embarrassed herself. Her eyes were drawn away from him when she heard a sudden laugh - the kind that made the corners of her own mouth turn up without her knowledge - and she scanned the hall for the culprit.

When her gaze settled on two girls standing next to another girl, all of them chattering away, her heart did something funny that she wasn't used to. The girl with the dark curly hair shut her locker door, said something to the other dark haired girl and the redhead, and began to walk away. Imogen's eyes followed her, almost of their own accord, and she finally shook her head when the girl was out of sight and tried to force her attention back to Eli. He was gone by the time she checked in on him, and she growled in frustration, picking up her bag and making her way to her drama class.

Eli would be there, she knew, and so she took a seat across the room and awkwardly struck up a conversation with someone else, injecting as much energy as she could into her words, her enthusiasm carrying her away at points. Dawes clapped her hands once, twice, three times, her routine that she did just before making an announcement. Imogen rose to her feet, heading to the other side of the room so that she would have a better vantage point once the class started, but she stopped short when the door opened and the girl from the hallway entered.

"Class, we have a late addition. Welcome to grade eleven drama, Miss Coyne," Dawes said, smiling at the girl.

Somehow she found herself seated across the room a few minutes later and she couldn't quite recall how she had gotten there. She remembered seeing the girl and then freezing up, and _- oh. _She had talked to her. Imogen had actually stepped past the girl, leaned in just slightly, and asked if she was supposed to be in grade twelve. It was how the girl's voice had sounded when she responded that she was short an arts credit that sent chills down Imogen's back. Her eyes skipped around the students near her and she finally settled on one, reaching over and tapping the girl on the shoulder. She turned, looking annoyed.

"Hey, um, I was just wondering - what's the new girl's name?"

"How do you not know who that is?" Imogen was a little taken aback, wondering exactly what this girl's history was, then, if she was so famous in the halls of Degrassi. She slowly shrugged her shoulders, eyebrows dipped in confusion. "It's Fiona Coyne, you moron."

Imogen sat back in her seat, ignoring the jab completely. Fiona Coyne. It was such an interesting, upperclass name. It wasn't as far out there as Imogen, of course, but it was pretty in a delicate way, and, risking a glance out of the corner of her eye, Imogen could definitely see how it fit her.

What she couldn't see was why she had all of these weird butterflies in her stomach where Fiona was concerned.

—

Imogen managed to push Fiona out of her mind for quite a while, focusing on her goal of getting to Eli and working on the play. Fiona was the director, so they had to interact, of course, but she had such blinders on when it came to her supposed shaggy-haired prince that she refused to acknowledge anyone but him or the unhealthy aspects of their relationship or the fact that he didn't even want her, he just wanted a stand-in for Clare. She was used to settling for second best and this situation wasn't any different, so she didn't see why she needed to look for anything more.

There were still moments when she would be practicing her lines in the wings and she'd glance up from the page to see Fiona standing center stage, one hand on her hip, and trying to help the lighting crew position something, or telling the painters what they needed to do next, or looking over the newest costume that the department had whipped up.

"Imogen!" she heard one day, and her head snapped up from the page so quickly she was worried that she might get whiplash. Fiona was looking at her from the stage, beckoning her over. The strangest burst of feelings found themselves lodged behind Imogen's ribcage and she wasn't sure what they were as she skipped over, grinning cheerfully at Fiona and the girl standing beside her.

"Hi! What can I do for you?" Fiona took the dress the girl was wearing and held it out to Imogen.

"Try this on and see if it fits? Thanks. Bring it back out when you're done." Imogen knew that Fiona was busy with everything because the play was in a few days, but she still had to fight down the small pang of hurt that flashed through her as she watched the older girl walk away from her.

—

After that, Imogen didn't talk to Fiona until after the summer was over. Things with Eli reached a crescendo, exploded, and she finally realized that things between them weren't going to work out and that they never were. He apologized in the end and she accepted it on the terms that they would be friends and nothing more, and when she woke up on the first day of summer to find a strange, empty ache in her chest where her feelings for Eli used to rest, she didn't know if she was relieved or if she wanted to cry.

Seeing Fiona on the first day was like taking the patched up hole that Eli left on her heart and tearing it off to reveal something new, better, but still so fragile. Her attempts to get Fiona to talk to her were brushed off with the utmost of ease and she shrank back into herself for the rest of the day, only coming out again when Eli found her by her locker at the end of the day. It would figure that as soon as he had her smiling again Fiona would walk down the hall and he would follow her out the side door of the school.

Imogen had made up her mind to give Fiona another chance. She understood how it felt to be left out, so she could sort of understand why she chose to sit with Marisol. Marisol had a ridiculous amount of popularity amongst the other seniors at the school, so Fiona was being smart with her choices in friends, and Imogen told her as much.

It was strange to go home that day with an invitation to Fiona Coyne's party and the knowledge that her perfect girl wasn't so perfect. (It was even stranger that finding out that Fiona was flawed made her even more perfect in Imogen's eyes.)

—

Imogen had never been so pissed at another human being before in her entire life, but she'd also never been quite so enamored with another human being, and she wondered if intense feelings were supposed to balance one another out like that. She ripped another layer of tin foil off of a lunch tray and banged it onto the stack of them beside her, muttering some very unladylike - and un-Imogen-like - curses under her breath, stopping only when she heard faint footsteps behind her. She didn't even need to turn around to know who it was.

"Brought you a coffee. Extra strong. Looks like we'll need it."

Imogen didn't even bother to answer her and just ripped off another layer, wondering who gave Fiona Coyne the right to march into her life looking all perfect and acting all perfect and then tearing down everything Imogen had ever thought about her but still managing to be some kind of wonderful? Fiona had wandered away at this point, her back to Imogen, and when she spoke again her words made Imogen stop.

"So you were right."

Despite the fact that she had been halfheartedly wishing that something bad would happen to Fiona today, she had also been hoping twice as hard that Katie and Marisol wouldn't screw her over in the end. Of course they would, though; they were the playground bully girls who never quite grew up and who took advantage of the nice girls who just wanted friends.

"They turned on me. I always do this. I always mess things up. And this year I don't have Holly J to fix things for me. I don't have anybody. I know it doesn't make up for it, but I managed to get your suspension reduced. I'm really sorry, Imogen."

Everything she was saying chipped away at Imogen's resolve to stay mad at her and that, coupled with the fact that she had never been able to stay mad at people for long and, okay, the fact that Imogen had a really good view of her ass before she turned around made her forgive Fiona almost instantly. "How am I supposed to stay mad at you when you're such a sad sack?"

Fiona let out a slight laugh, but her smile didn't quite reach her eyes, not yet.

"If you want, we can lust over jocks together."

"Can we?" That got one out of her. Imogen wasn't quite done yet and stalked towards her, trying her hardest to look serious and give her the slightest of lectures. It seemed like Fiona got the point of it and her proposition to get Katie and Marisol back was one that kept Imogen interested - if not to stick around Fiona, then to avenge the both of them for getting royally screwed over.

Fiona's proposition of friendship was always going to be met with the idea of a makeover, of course, but the tin foil was just an added bonus. Imogen grinned as she found a roll of it and handed the end to Fiona, nudging her hand away so that she could wrap it around her legs into a makeshift skirt. Fiona laughed, the kind of sound that if Imogen could make tangible would be pure gold, and that she just wanted to replicate forever, and Imogen straightened up, telling her to twirl. When Fiona did so, throwing an extra shimmy in there, Imogen could've sworn that her heart almost stuttered to a stop at how beautiful a carefree Fiona was.

—

Their friendship grew quickly and closely. They went from barely knowing each other to being around each nearly twenty-four-seven, and Imogen was completely fine with that. It seemed like Fiona was, too, and Eli was thrown in there once in a while. She was having a harder and harder time try to push away her feelings, especially since she was the kind of person who was so used to wearing her heart on her sleeve, but she wasn't going to ruin her newfound friendship with someone who finally understood everything about her and still didn't run the other way. Still, she had to drop hints every once in a while or else her heart was going to feel like it was bursting out of her chest if Fiona did one more cute thing.

"We're lucky the universe brought us together, then. We must be soulmates," she giggled, watching as Fiona's face broke out into a massive smile as well before glancing back down at their mini house project. When Fiona picked up her sketch again and studied it, blue eyes flicking across the page, Imogen suddenly felt very exposed, almost like that was a part of her on the inside that was outside now and Fiona was just holding it in the palm of her hand. It was an uncomfortable experience, to say the least, and she was glad when the paper was put down again.

"So, when are we going to be at the hot tub again?"

Imogen rolled her eyes. "Just help me get the floor level and then we talk about how many floors you're going to buy our little solar family here," she teased, motioning to Fiona to pick up the bucket once more. Fiona made a little whining sound of protest but nonetheless strapped on the giant gloves again and set to work.

She really couldn't deal with the way any kind of anything from Fiona made her feel lit up in ways that nobody else ever had before. Even when she had been trying to get any kind of attention that she could from Eli he had never been able to make her squirm with sheer happiness over the phone at something little he had said, or make her heart beat so loudly that she was sure he would hear when he sat just a little too close on the couch. He certainly never remembered her coffee order or what she was allergic to when ordering food or where she liked to shop at first when going to the mall.

The more Imogen tried to convince herself that her crush needed to go away, the more she became mired in it.

—

The only reason she went along with the entire dating Eli thing was because she felt like Fiona didn't want anything to do with her anymore and because that was what Fiona wanted, right? That was what she got from the situation, at least, and so when Eli came up to her in the hallway, Imogen took a deep breath, listened to him, and finally nodded her head when he asked her out on a date.

Fiona's smile when she found out seemed just as forced as the one Imogen had to put on when she was doing the telling, and she cocked her head to the side. "Isn't this what you wanted?" she asked, her tone laced with confusion and a little bit of hurt. Fiona blinked and then surged forward, hugging the two of them close. Imogen sighed a little, melting into Fiona's touch and wishing desperately that it was her that she was going on a date with and not Eli.

Eli was a nice guy. She genuinely did like him as a best friend and although there were worse people to be making out with the spark wasn't there - not on her end, at any rate. Fiona's face kept popping up behind her eyelids whenever Eli kissed her, and she couldn't help but gravitate towards the older girl when the three of them hung out. When Eli began to get crazy jealous and possessive after breaking her camera she realized how much she wanted to be out of the relationship and began to spend every spare minute at Casa Coyne, talking it over with Fiona and generally using any excuse to sleep over. Fiona had no problem with it whatsoever, telling Imogen that she had free reign of the house to do what she wanted and that she was always welcome.

Every once in a while Imogen caught Fiona looking at her in a certain way and it set the wheels in Imogen's head spinning. She let herself wonder for all of two seconds if Fiona might just feel the same way about her before deciding that, no, that would be entirely stupid because Fiona had hardly wanted to be friends with her in the first place let alone like her.

When things with Eli bottomed out, Fiona was right there to help pick up the pieces with a girl's night at her house with plenty of ice cream and sappy chick flicks to pass the time. It was all so cliche that it actually made Imogen laugh for the first time in a few days, and when they sat down on the couch Fiona laid down with her head in Imogen's lap. Imogen played with her hair, putting in little braids here and there, but for the most part she just traced Fiona's profile with her eyes in the near-dark and tried to ignore the heat that was rising in both her face and coiling deep in her belly. It definitely didn't help when Fiona put a hand on her thigh to help shift herself and then casually left it there for the duration of the movie.

Imogen was starting to think that maybe her fleeting ideas of Fiona liking her back weren't so far-fetched after all.

—

Eli slipped up a couple of days before the Frostival and said something that didn't confirm Imogen's suspicions but definitely gave them some kind of support. Maybe.

"So, are you and Fiona going to the carnival together?" he asked, leaning against the locker next to hers and flashing her his trademark Goldsworthy smile. She returned the smile and shrugged her shoulders, taking out one of her books for her next class.

"I don't know, probably? Why do you ask?"

"I was just wondering. Fi might've mentioned it. Sounds like it'll be a fun date for you two." Imogen stopped short and turned to face him, eyes narrowed and mouth open, but he was already walking down the hall and out of earshot. The boy could move quickly when he knew someone was after him, that was for sure.

"Hey, Im." Imogen jumped nearly a foot in the air, dropping her book on the ground. Fiona stepped back in surprise before laughing nervously and picking up the book. "Didn't mean to scare you. What did Eli have to say?"

"Um, not a lot. So! How was your big test last class?" She closed her locker door and started off down the hall, pretending to listen to Fiona as she went over what he had said at least a dozen times before they arrived at their class and she was forced to pay attention.

She was going to kill that boy.

—

When Fiona bought her an entire carnival Imogen knew she had fallen for the right person in the end. She didn't know of a single other human being who would sell their belongings just to buy her a carnival to make sure that she was happy. She couldn't imagine wanting any of those other people, either, and she was aware for the first time in a long time that she hadn't thought about a single person (not including Eli but he was just complicated) besides Fiona since that day she had seen her in the hallway with Anya and Holly J (she found out their names later). She didn't know if it was love, she didn't know if Fiona felt the same way, and she didn't know if it would last, but she did know that it was the scariest, bravest, most comforting, most nerve-wracking, worst, best thing to ever happen to her.

"Are you as scared as I am?"

"Probably."

"I've never been a fan of heights."

The two of them were on the Ferris wheel, after hours of being on the other rides that the carnival had to offer, and being in such a small, contained space with Fiona was starting to get to Imogen, not to mention Fiona looked amazing tonight. Happy and smiling agreed with her much more than anything else did. Imogen gulped.

"It's not the heights I'm scared of."

Fiona shifted, facing Imogen a bit more, still laughing a bit.

"Okay, Imogen, in case I die on this thing, there's something I need to tell you."

Imogen wasn't laughing; in fact, her mouth had suddenly gone dry and she couldn't tear her eyes away from Fiona if she tried. Her hands were sweaty inside her thick, ridiculous gloves, and the green blanket they had felt suffocating. Her thoughts were going a million miles an hour in her head, none slowing down long enough for her to trap it and make sense of it. "Okay." She shifted so that she was facing Fiona, too.

"I..." Fiona trailed off, her eyes meeting Imogen's, and then suddenly she was leaning in and all Imogen could do was close her eyes and kiss back briefly before Fiona was gone, moving back to her side of the little carriage.

Oh. Oh, that had happened. That had honestly, truly happened. For realsies.

"Ever since the first week of school I've had this silly schoolgirl crush on you and I can't seem to make it go away, which is a big reason why I thought moving to New York could be - "

"Fiona!" Fiona stopped babbling and glanced back at Imogen, making eye contact. Imogen smiled, putting a hand on her shoulder for support before leaning in to kiss her this time. Fiona responded with just enough eagerness and when they broke away, Imogen had a hard time not just laughing hysterically. "I've wanted to do that for so long." She took her hand off of Fiona's shoulder, missing the contact almost instantly, and shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know what it means."

Fiona looked slightly scared, which was an emotion Imogen wasn't used to seeing on her. She didn't like it. "Well, I hope it means that you like me."

"Could I be more obvious?"

While falling for Fiona Coyne was one of the most terrifying things Imogen Moreno had ever done, falling for her was also one of the best things that she had ever done, and she had done some pretty damn good things in her life.


End file.
